Senate Republicans Eye ‘Grand Bargain’ on Budget

A group of Republican senators who have been meeting privately with top White House officials have concluded that they want to try again to reach a sweeping budget deal that would cut deficits and make changes to Medicare, according to participants in the meetings.

The Senate contingent met for more than two hours at the White House on Thursday and got an unexpected visitor. President Barack Obama joined the meeting in White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough’s office and stayed for about an hour.

The senators had been uncertain about whether to seek a more modest deal that would simply replace the across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester, or to pursue a more ambitious “grand bargain” aimed at shoring up the major entitlement programs, among other goals.

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